Chapter 28: Object-Oriented Programming Part II
Basic classes and objects are just the beginning. Professional OOP involves inheritance hierarchies, polymorphic behaviors, composable designs, and industry-standard patterns. You need to know when to inherit, when to compose, how to make objects behave like built-in types, and which design patterns solve recurring architectural problems.
This chapter builds on Chapter 29 foundations to teach advanced OOP patterns: inheritance hierarchies with Method Resolution Order, polymorphism and duck typing, composition over inheritance, special methods (magic methods), and professional design patterns. You'll understand when to use inheritance vs composition, how Python's special methods make objects Pythonic, and how design patterns enable scalable architectures.
This chapter is foundational for AI-native software development—real multi-agent systems rely on these concepts. Understanding these patterns prepares you for professional AI engineering in Parts 5-13.
🎯 Before You Begin
What You'll Learn
By completing this chapter, you will be able to:
- Create inheritance hierarchies using
super()and explain Method Resolution Order (MRO) through C3 linearization - Implement polymorphic systems using abstract base classes, @abstractmethod, and duck typing principles
- Choose composition over inheritance for flexible designs and organize code into modules and packages
- Master special methods to customize object behavior (
__str__,__repr__,__add__,__len__,__iter__,__eq__,__hash__,__call__) - Apply design patterns (Singleton, Factory, Observer, Strategy) to build professional multi-agent architectures
- Analyze design tradeoffs and select appropriate OOP approaches for real problems